How to Safely Switch From QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online

Good businesses know that the world is always changing. Great businesses adapt their practices to accommodate that change.

There are two main structures that require change many times during the life of a business.
The first is external practices. This includes things like marketing, location development, packaging choices, order fulfillment, and client relations.

The second is your internal processes: recruitment, management, and bookkeeping. For today, we’re going to focus on changing your bookkeeping practices.

Perhaps the most common change in bookkeeping is switching from Quickbooks Desktop to Quickbooks Online. Quickbooks Online is becoming the more popular choice for bookkeeping, thanks to its cost effectiveness, remote work-ability, and improved features.

Let’s explore that change and elaborate on how to do it properly.

Set Up Your Company File For Transfer

A common mistake we see when companies attempt to transfer their data from QBD to QBO is that they jump the gun on transferring before their data is properly managed and formatted for the change.

First, be advised that you can only change your company over to a QBO account within the first 60 days of creating said account. If you wait too long, you may need to spend an appreciable number of labor hours transferring it manually.
Second, you need to hold off on starting payroll in your QuickBooks Online account. If you do, you won’t be able to convert your company smoothly to that account.

You should also, in your QBD terminal, hit Ctrl + 1 to see the number of targets on your file. If it’s over 350,000, you’ll need to consolidate the file before converting it.

Finally, we heavily recommend backing up your QBD company file. In the unlikely event that the transfer has a critical failure, you want to make sure your important financial data is protected.

With the preparations out of the way, let’s get started on transferring your file!

Transferring Your Company File From QuickBooks Desktop Pro and Premier to QuickBooks Online

To begin, create your QuickBooks Online account. There are a number of packages to choose from, so make sure the package you opt for has enough featurability and storage for your needs. Remember, you must perform the transfer within 60 days of creating this account.

After you create your account, go to your QBD terminal and log in as an admin. Make sure your Desktop version is up to date (you can begin a trial with a new version and restore your company file to do this for free.) By the way, the transfer process is the same for both Pro and Premier. If you use QBD Enterprise, you can skip ahead.

Then, go to Company, and select Export Company File to Quickbooks Online. You may be prompted to sign in (do so as an admin). You’ll be asked whether or not to want to transfer inventory. Bear in mind that only QBO Plus and Advanced have the ability to track inventory.
From there, simply select the QBO company you want to transfer to, enter some information and hit Agree. That’s all! It’ll begin the transfer, which may take up to 24 hours.

Steps to Take After Transferring from QBD to QBO

After the transfer is complete, we suggest keeping your QBD records up to date in tandem with your new QBO records. This allows you to prevent loss of data should, for any reason, your QBO account go kaput. It also gives you a chance to try out QBO for all bookkeeping practices without feeling pressured to stick with it if it doesn’t work out. You should also run a P&L report on your new QBO account to ensure all data converted appropriately.

Make sure to go to your settings and enable automatic payments and credits in QBO, since they will not be applied during the transfer. Finally, connect your bank accounts to QBO via autofeed, since this is not done by default.

Transferring From QuickBooks Enterprise

If your firm uses QBD Enterprise, it’s recommended that you start fresh with QBO and do not attempt a transfer, as transferring a QBD Enterprise file almost always results in data loss. If you’d like to give it a shot anyway, follow these steps:
First, sign into your QBD Enterprise account as an administrator. Then, hit Ctrl + 1 to open up your company’s information.
Then, press Ctrl + Q + B, and then select OK. Hit Start Your Export. Sign in as an admin to your QBO account, and then follow the steps like normal!

How Your Various Accounts Will Transfer

When you convert a company from QBD to QBO, some things will be converted to different names, will be grouped differently, or will not be converted at all. Let’s rattle off a few of the major discrepancies to keep in mind.

1.) If you have an audit trail in QBD, it will not be transferred to QBO. QBO will automatically keep a record of who has opened the books.
2.) If you have a bill discount in QBD, it converts to a vendor credit in QBO.
3.) Budgets only convert to Plus and Advanced QBO accounts.
4.) Profit and Loss is the only budget type that can be transferred.
5.) Credit card charges in QBD convert to expenses in QBO.
6.) Jobs are converted to sub-customers in QBO.
7.) Quickbooks Desktop has more payroll features than QBO. Paychecks will be converted into regular checks and employee addresses may indeed be fixed. Remember to set up payroll AFTER the transfer.
8.) Reconciliations will not be transferred, so you will need to manually enter an ending balance and reconcile.

Booktied Can Help With Your Transfer

If you find yourself having trouble converting over to QBO, just give us a shout! Booktied offers a number of services relating to Quickbooks and to bookkeeping itself.

With Booktied, you can give your team the training it needs to be self-sufficient in all bookkeeping practices. You can also outsource your bookkeeping to us as the ultimate time-saver! We’re just a call or click away!

Keyboard Shortcuts in QuickBooks Online & QuickBooks Desktop

Time, as we know, cannot be created.  As such, small businesses must complete daily tasks as efficiently as possible so that profit and productivity can be maximized.  This concept should also be applied to your bookkeeping practices.

Let’s check out some convenient shortcuts that Intuit has built into their QuickBooks Online and Desktop softwares.

Shortcuts for QuickBooks Online

Finding text on a page:

This shortcut works on any website and on just about any browser.  It’s a very powerful tool to have.  Simply press ctrl + F and type in the word or phrase you’re looking for.  Most browsers will automatically flick you to the first instance of that text on the page.  Then, to move from instance to instance, press enter.  This is especially useful when looking for a specific transaction or customer on a long list.

Calculate rates or totals:

Say goodbye to constantly switching between your calculator and your laptop.  QBO can automatically calculate amounts and rates from within a text field.  In any field marked Amount or Rate, simply type in the calculation you need, and hit tab.  QuickBooks will automatically calculate the equation and input it into the field.

Add a desktop shortcut for QBO:

You can add a shortcut on your desktop that enables your browser to open directly to QuickBooks.  To do this, reduce the window of your browser so that you can see your desktop in the background, go to https://quickbooks.intuit.com/login/, and click and drag the lock icon to the left of the URL and drop it into your desktop.  Note: sometimes the lock will appear as the QuickBooks logo in certain browsers.

Navigate a form without a mouse:

Navigating a form without a mouse is fairly straightforward.  To move forward one field, hit tab.  To move backward one field, hit shift + tab.  To select a checkbox, press the spacebar.  To open a dropdown list, use alt + down arrow once the list button is highlighted.  This saves a lot of time, since trying to move a mouse around a tightly-packed form is annoying and time consuming.  You may also find that your carpal tunnel gets a little better with this method as well.

Shortcuts for QuickBooks Desktop

QuickBooks Desktop comes out of the box with dozens of keyboard shortcuts.  Below is a quick reference list of the most important ones.

When navigating dates, QuickBooks has a very clever system for jumping about.  To find the first or last day of a given time period, such as a week, month, or year, simply press the first or last letter of that respective word.

Here’s a guide:

Jump to the first day of the week by pressing W.

Jump to the last day of the week by pressing K.

Jump to the first day of the month by pressing M.

Jump to the last day of the month by pressing H.

Jump to the first day of the year by pressing Y.

Jump to the last day of the year by pressing R.

Editing various lists and forms is also made easier with QuickBooks Desktop shortcuts:

Press ctrl + E to edit the selected transaction in the register.

Pressing ctrl + del will delete a line.

Ctrl + alt + Y will copy the selected line in an invoice, and ctrl + alt + V will paste said line.

Use + and – to move up or down by one.

Other general shortcuts:

Ctrl + A opens your Chart of Accounts.

Ctrl + W opens the Write Checks window.

In any list or form, use tab to move forward one field, and tab + shift to move back.

There are also a number of general bookkeeping shortcuts to be aware of, which you can use in both QBO and QBD.  Be sure you’re utilizing batch options: if you need to delete a large number of transactions, you can do so in one fell swoop by checking the box to the left of each transaction and then selecting “delete” from the batch options menu.

Another good practice for QuickBooks is to set reminders for various housekeeping items.  For example, setting a reconciliation reminder for the end of each month can help prevent you from getting behind with double checking your transactions.  This can save a lot of time later by reducing bottlenecks, and can save money by reducing overtime pay for your accountants or bookkeepers.

Finally, there are many tasks within the field of bookkeeping in general that can be automated.  If you use QuickBooks Online Advanced, you can use the Workflows feature to automate just about any calculation or notification that you normally utilize on QuickBooks.

QuickBooks has many shortcuts beyond what was discussed in this article.  Don’t be afraid to experiment and explore other shortcuts, and to mix and match them to find your optimized workflow.

Using QuickBooks is the industry standard in bookkeeping for a good reason.  The sheer amount of featurability and usability present in even the most basic versions of QuickBooks allows business owners to record and analyze their finances in the easiest, most accurate way possible.  And now, with shortcuts and other workflow tools, it’s faster than ever.

Booktied offers training on everything QuickBooks so you can improve your bookkeeping practices even further.  We also offer bookkeeping catch-up and full-scope outsourced accounting services for any business.  Contact us for a free consultation.